1. Technical Field
The present invention pertains to folding tongs and, more particularly, to improvements in tongs of the type in which two legs are resiliently biased to an open position and foldable to a collapsed storage position.
2. Discussion of the Art
U.S. Pat. No. 2,346,537 discloses wood tongs comprising two legs pivotally joined at their proximal ends. A first of the legs is configured with three longitudinally extending fingers at its proximal ends formed by cutting two longitudinal slits in the leg. The center or inner finger is pivotally joined to the proximal end of the second leg between two non-flexing fingers of the second leg. The pivot axis extends along the width dimensions of the legs at a location midway of the thickness of each joined leg. The ends of the two outer fingers resiliently abut the second leg proximate the pivot axis. The second leg has a complementary longitudinally extending slot defined therein and configured to receive portions of the central finger of the first leg as the distal ends of the legs are forced together during operation. Such forcing together causes the ends of the outer fingers to be resiliently flexed away from the second leg as increasing portions of the inner finger enter the slot in the second leg. Upon release of the force the spring-like resilient abutment of the ends of the outer fingers against the second leg causes the distal ends of the legs to spread apart to a quiescent or open position. Although this arrangement provides for a satisfactory gripping function, it suffers from the disadvantage of not lying optimally flat when the unit is stored. Specifically, the legs either remain in their open pivot position when stored, or are rotated in the opposite direction (i.e., opposite to the actuation direction) to a storage position in which the legs lie adjacent one another without any bias force acting between them. In this storage position the ends of the outer fingers project out of the plane of the first leg, thereby precluding flush surface to surface stacking of multiple tongs. In other words, the total thickness of the unit in the storage position is the width of the two legs plus the amount of out of plane projection of the fingers. This adds to the required storage space for one or more units and renders stacking awkward in view of the inability to stack flat planar surfaces flush against one another.
A second configuration of prior art tongs provides complementary fingers on both legs wherein the non-flexing center finger of the first leg is pivotally secured to the non-flexing outer fingers of the second leg. Specifically, the pivot point extends along the width dimension of the non-flexing legs at a location substantially midway of the thickness dimension of those legs. The resilient and foreshortened outer fingers of the first leg and center finger of the second leg are configured such that their ends biased out of plane relative to the adjacent fingers on the same leg. Specifically, the two resilient outer fingers of the first leg bend in a slight arc toward the second leg, and the single resilient fingers of the second leg bend in a slight arc toward the first leg. When the legs are forced together in use, the exposed ends of the resilient fingers of each leg abut the non-flexing fingers of the other leg to provide a resilient bias force against closure of the tongs. These tongs, like the tongs in the '537 patent, also function to grip in a satisfactory manner, but due to the normally out of plane projection of the ends of the resilient fingers, the tongs cannot be stacked flat when the legs are rotated to the storage position.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a tongs unit constructed in a manner that permits it to lay flat and use a minimum amount of space when stored and transported.
The objects of the invention are achieved individually and in combination, and it is not intended that the present invention be construed as requiring two or more of objects to be combined unless expressly required by the claims attached hereto.